Mid-afternoon. This morning Dr. Brad put in
your new cap and early afternoon Carol got her hair done. She is on page 51 of The
Last Mile. You stopped at McD's for your drinks and now you are at the far
north lot of Pine Hill Lakes Park facing west while sitting in the tree shade
on this very pleasant partly cloudy Spring day. Tomorrow morning you have
another appointment with Dr. M and in the afternoon you will be heading to Kim
and Paul's and staying with the boys until Sunday while Kim and Paul fly to a
friend's wedding set for Friday night. - Amorella
1525 hours. I like your summaries, this is sometimes like a diary only
most of the time we don't have much going on -- everyday retirement living.
Many people in the world would like to have
similar kinds of 'everyday' but that is not the point here. Your life reflects
your writing and vise-versa. - Amorella
1529 hours. I'm a person who writes, not a writer.
Very good point. That you are. On Facebook
you call yourself an editor. - Amorella
I am that too, but don't hold me to it. Let's
work on chapter twenty. How do we bring up angels here?
That's in chapter
twenty-one. Right now let Soki say his piece then we'll move on to the next
chapter. - Amorella
1534 hours. Most of the time Soki speaks at the conclusion of the
chapter, somewhat reflecting on the invisible 'spiritual' part of a character
or two. I need to check out a Wikipedia definition before going on. I need to
better understand what Soki's position in each chapter is and on his intent.
** **
Human spirit
From
Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia
The human spirit is a component of human philosophy,
psychology, art and knowledge -
the spiritual or mental part of humanity. While the term can be used with the
same meaning as "human soul", human spirit is sometimes used to refer
to the impersonal, universal or higher component of human nature in contrast to
soul or psyche which can refer to the ego or lower
element. The human spirit includes our intellect, emotions, fears, passions,
and creativity.
In the models of Daniel
A. Helminiak and Bernard Lonergan, human spirit is considered to be the mental
functions of awareness, insight, understanding, judgement and other reasoning powers. It is
distinguished from the separate component of psyche which comprises the entities of
emotion, images, memory and personality.
John Teske views human
spirit as a social construct representing the qualities of purpose and meaning which transcend the individual human.
Distinction between the human spirit and soul
According
to historian Oswald Spengler, a distinction between Spirit and Soul has been
made by the West and earlier civilizations which influenced its development. The human spirit can be seen as the
heavenly component of human's non material makeup - the part that is impersonal
or universal. Whereas souls are the personal element unique to each individual.
As Spengler writes in The Decline of the West:
"... more important than all this is the opposition of
Spirit and Soul (Hebrew: ruach and nephesh, Persian: ahuand urvan, Mandasan: monuhmed and gyan, Greek: pneuma and psyche)
which first comes out in the basic feeling of the prophetic
religions, then pervades the whole of Apocalyptic, and finally forms and
guides the world-contemplations of the awakened Culture - as seen with Philo,
Paul and Plotinus, Gnostics and Mandeans, Augustine and the Avesta, Islam and
the Kabbalah. Ruach means originally "wind" [to
be spirit] and nephesh "breath"
[to be soul] [my inclusions/interpretation] - rho
The nephesh
[soul] is always in one way
or another related to the bodily and earthly, to the below, the evil, the
darkness. Its effort is the "upward." The ruach [wind] belongs to the divine, to the above,
to the light. Its effects in man when it descends are the heroism of a
Samson, the holy wrath of an Elijah, the enlightenment of the judge (e.g.
Solomon passing judgment) and all kinds of divination and ecstasy. It is
poured out. As in Isaiah xi, x, the Messiah becomes the incarnation of the ruach [wind].
|
In
Christianity, the Bible identifies
humanity's three basic elements: spirit, soul and body. Christians emphasise that the human
spirit is the 'real person', the very core of a person's being, the essential
seat of their existence. When a person accepts Jesus Christ as their
Saviour, it is their human spirit that is transformed as they become 'new
creatures' in Jesus Christ. The soul which is the seat of the will, mind and
emotions does not get converted but needs to be renewed on a daily basis
through the recommended Christian disciplines such as prayer and reading the
Bible. In Islam, Muslims are
viewed as having their own spirits, but one that in a sense is one with God's
spirit. For Spengler, the perception of unity this idea led to was important
for the emergence of the "consensus" that maintained harmony in
Islamic culture, especially during the Golden Age of Islam.
Selected and
edited from Wikipedia -- human spirit
** **
1602
hours. I can see by the above that in the fictional sense soul and spirit are
separate but in the books and blog the spirit is the trinity of
heartansoulanmind.
Why not let the Soki take care of the discrepancy
in this chapter twenty because surely this will come up for debate in chapter
twenty-one. - Amorella
1607 hours. This is all new to me. If we can make this less complicated
and also move on fairly quickly to something else, it's okay. What about plot?
We don't really seem to have one, this is all a 'meeting of characters' set up,
a prelude to going to ThreePlanets -- an adventure to be sure but not a plot as
such. We aren't going to an island to find a giant ape and bring him to
civilization. I don't really see an end plot other than the six plus Ship
returning to Earth safely that is, as far as the characters are concerned. (1614)
You sit muddled in thought. - Amorella
1616 hours. I don't remember characters discussing the definitions of the
soul and the spirit in the original or the modified chapter twenty-one. This
whole writing is serendipitous. As such why should any of this hold together
organizationally, holistically?
You are home and Carol suggested Papa John's
for supper; you like it because you can have the other half for lunch tomorrow.
Post. - Amorella
Checking online you sister Cathy has been goading you to read Seveneves
and you told her you would (reluctantly because you feel you are burnt out of
sci fi) because she, Tod and your niece Jenny liked it and want to discuss the
book with you when you finish it. - Amorella
1705 hours. Here is Wikipedia's article on Seveneves.
** **
Seveneves is a speculative fiction novel by Neal Stephenson, published in
2015. The story tells of the efforts to preserve human society in the wake of
apocalyptic events on Earth, following the unexplained disintegration of the
Moon.
Plot
Part 1
At some
unspecified date in the near future, an unknown force causes the Moon to
shatter into seven pieces. As the shattered remnants of the Moon begin to
collide with one another, astronomer and science popularizer "Doc" Dubois Harris
calculates that the number of collisions will increase exponentially. A large
number of moon fragments will begin entering Earth's atmosphere, forming a
"white sky" and
blanketing the earth within two years with what he calls a "Hard
Rain" of bolides; this will cause the atmosphere to heat to incandescence
and oceans to boil away, and make Earth uninhabitable for thousands of years.
It is decided to evacuate as many people and resources as possible to a
"Cloud Ark" in orbit, including a "swarm" of
"arklet" habitats that will be able to avoid the debris from the moon
— both to attempt to preserve the human race and to give the remaining doomed
inhabitants of Earth something to hope for, to prevent civil disorder from
breaking out on earth before its surface is destroyed. Each nation on Earth is
invited to choose by lot a small number of young people to become eligible to
join the Cloud Ark.
The Cloud
Ark is to be based around the International Space Station (ISS), currently
commanded by American astronaut Ivy Xiao. The ISS is already bolted onto an
iron Arjuna asteroid called
Amalthea, which provides some protection against moon debris. Robots are used
to excavate Amalthea to provide more protection in a project run by mining and
robotics engineer Dinah MacQuarie. Technicians and specialists, including Doc
Dubois, are sent to the ISS in advance of the Hard Rain to prepare it to become
the headquarters of the Cloud Ark.
The plan is
that the Cloud Ark must be self-sufficient for 5,000 years and capable of
repopulating Earth once it is habitable again. A Human Genetic Archive is sent
to the Cloud Ark, with the intention that it will be used to rebuild the human
population. Approximately 1,500 people are launched into space in the two years
before the Hard Rain begins.
Suspecting
that some architects of the Cloud Ark are interested only in pacifying Earth's
inhabitants with false hope (rather than creating an environment that will
actually survive in the long term), a billionaire named Sean Probst realizes
that the Cloud Ark will need a ready supply of water in order to provide
propellant for the space station and to prevent it from eventually falling into
the earth's atmosphere. He embarks on a two-year expedition to extract ice from
a comet nicknamed Greg's Skeleton, using a nuclear reactor to provide power to
bring it back towards Earth.
Part 2
The Hard
Rain begins approximately two years after the destruction of the moon as
predicted; human civilization as well as nearly all life on Earth is
obliterated, although some try to take shelter underground (such as Dinah's
father) or in the deep ocean (such as Ivy's fiancé). Markus Leuker, appointed
leader of the Cloud Ark, declares all nations of Earth to be dissolved, and
imposes martial law under the Cloud Ark Constitution. Despite a worldwide
agreement that members of government will not be launched into space, the
President of the United States, Julia Bliss Flaherty, manages to get herself
sent to the Cloud Ark at the last minute. Shortly afterwards the main cache of
the physical Human Genetic Archive attached to the ISS is ruined by the
thrusters of an arklet passing too closely, leaving only samples that had been
distributed amongst the arks.
There is
disagreement on the Cloud Ark about the best way to organize its society and
avoid the debris of the moon. Some "Arkies" favor converting the
Cloud Ark into a decentralized swarm of
small space vessels at a higher orbit out of range of debris, rather than
maintaining the central authority of the ISS. Doc Dubois wants to shelter in
the "Cleft", a crevasse on the now-exposed iron core of the moon.
Others want to go to Mars. Julia Flaherty starts to acquire a coterie of
followers and encourages the proponents of the decentralized swarm plan.
Sean
Probst's expedition has succeeded, and he has brought a comet into an orbit
that will soon pass by Earth. His radio has failed and he has built a
replacement by hand, and is able to communicate with Dinah MacQuarie by Morse
code. However, he and his party die of radiation sickness caused by fallout
from their nuclear reactor long before the expedition is complete. Markus
Leuker and Dinah travel to the comet with a small crew to take control of it
and bring it back to the Cloud Ark, in order to provide sufficient propellant
to reach the Cleft on the moon's core. Just before Dinah returns with the ice
as the sole survivor of the mission, Julia Flaherty persuades the majority of
the population to abandon the ISS and move to higher orbit in a decentralized
swarm, and sends a preliminary expedition to Mars. In the course of their
sudden, unauthorized departure the ISS sustains catastrophic damage to many
sections. The surviving portions of the Human Genetic Archive are carried along
with them, but due to the Arkies' ignorance, these surviving portions are
discarded or ignored. Only the digital version of the Human Genetic Archive
survives aboard the ISS. The ISS and remaining third of the cloud ark combine
through reshaping the ice into a support structure, and is rechristened Endurance.
During the
three years that it takes for Endurance to reach the Cleft, the majority of
its population die of various causes (cancer caused by cosmic radiation,
suicide, bolide strikes, etc.); by the time they are within range of the Cleft,
only about 30 survivors remain. Julia Bliss Flaherty's Swarm splits into two
factions, who fight and Flaherty's faction is defeated. Running out of food,
the Swarm resorts to cannibalism, and by the end of three years only 11
survive, including Flaherty and the leader of the opposing faction, Aïda. Aïda
requests to reunite the remnant of the Swarm with the Cloud Ark before it
reaches the Cleft, but secretly plans a battle for control of Endurance; as a result of that
battle the population is diminished even further.
By the time
Endurance reaches the relative safety of the Cleft, there are only eight
survivors, all female. One, the sociologist Luisa, has reached menopause, and
the remaining seven (Dinah, Ivy, Aïda, Tekla, Camila, Moira, and Julia) come to
be known as the Seven Eves. The Human Genetic Archive has been destroyed, but
they have sufficient resources to use the surviving genetics laboratory to
rebuild the human race by
parthenogenesis. They agree that each of the Seven Eves gets to choose how her
offspring will be genetically modified or enhanced. Aïda predicts that,
hundreds of years from now, this will result in there being seven new races.
Part 3
The narrative
jumps to 5,000 years later. There are now three billion humans living in a ring
around the Earth, and they have indeed formed into seven races, each one
descended from and named after the Seven Eves who survived the events of Part
2. These races have quite distinct characteristics, including
"Moirans" who can undergo "epigenetic shifts:, radically
changing their bodies in response to new environments. The iron core of the moon
has mostly been used to build space habitats, but the Cleft itself has been
turned into "Cradle", an exclusive piece of real estate attached to a
tether that occasionally "docks" with Earth.
Humanity
has divided mostly along racial lines into two states, Red and Blue, which are
engaged in a form of Cold War characterized by cultural isolation, espionage
and border skirmishes, mediated by treaty agreements more honored in the breach
than the observance.
The
orbiting races terraform Earth by
crashing ice comets into it to replenish the oceans, and seed the planet with
genetically created organisms based upon re-sequenced DNA data saved from the escape to orbit.
Once a breathable atmosphere is recreated, and sufficient plant and animal
species have been reseeded, some members of the orbiting races ("Sooners")
resettle the planet, in violation of treaty agreements.
A
"Seven", a group of seven people with one member from each race, is
recruited by "Doc" Hu Noah, to investigate mysterious people who have
been sighted on Earth. As the story unfolds, they discover that some humans did
indeed survive the Hard Rain on the planet by living in deep mines
("Diggers"), while others survived in ocean trenches using submarines
("Pingers"). These survivors have also evolved socially and
biologically to form two additional races. Conflict occurs because each of the
orbiting camps (Red and Blue) wishes to establish a preferential or exclusive
relationship with the Earthbound races: the Diggers, although descendants of
Dinah's family, interpret the Blue state's presence on their territory as an
act of aggression and develop an alliance with Red, prompting Blue to seek out
an alliance with the Pingers on the strength of Ivy's connection with one of
their founders.
In an
epilogue it is revealed that a separate secret underwater ark was created
concurrently with the cloud ark, leading to the development of the pingers,
based on analysis of the "selfies" Ivy's fiance had sent her, with
diagrams and sketches left in the background as clues. Ty invites the surviving
seven along with Sonar and Deep back to apartments at his bar with the intent
of forming the first "Nine".
Characters
Parts
One and Two
The
Seven Eves
·
Dinah MacQuarie - Roboticist working for Arjuna expeditions (a private asteroid
mining company). Her robots specialize in asteroid iron mining. She decides to
focus her descendants' genetics on leadership and "heroic" qualities.
·
Ivy Xiao - Born in Los Angeles, California, Xiao graduated from the
United States Naval Academy before
obtaining a PhD in applied physics from
Princeton University. At the start of Seveneves,
Xiao is the Commander of the International Space Station. She is demoted after
allowing Sean Probst to utilize ISS resourceas, but becomes commander again
after the death of her successor, Markus Leuker.
·
Julia Bliss
Flaherty - Frequently referred to as "JBF", Flaherty is
President of the United States during
the events of Part 1. In violation of an international accord, Flaherty saves
herself by fleeing to the ISS aboard a Boeing X-37, along with Pete Sterling,
her science advisor. Flaherty attempts to re-assert her leadership and
persuades a large number of cloud ark inhabitants to abandon the ISS. Disaster
and internal dissent lead to her being replaced by Aïda Ferrari. Her
descendants are more attuned to and adept at social and psychological
manipulation.
·
Moira Crewe - A geneticist sent aboard to ensure humanity's heterozygosity,
Crewe was raised in London and obtained degrees from Oxford and Harvard, and had previously worked
on the de-extinction of the
woolly mammoth. Due to the loss of the physical Human Genetic Archive, Crewe's
talents make her extremely valuable. Being the only person understanding the
changes Aïda requests for her descendants, she responds, through seven
failures, by giving her only surviving child the ability to undergo epigenetic shifts in order to counter all the
changes Aïda makes in her offspring.
·
Tekla
Alekseyevna Ilushina - A Russian cosmonaut, Tekla was a former Olympic
heptathalete, and was sent in the initial wave of suicide workers to retrofit
the ISS for its role as the cloud ark hub. Rescued by Dinah when her suit life
support system malfunctions, Tekla became the head of security aboard ISS. Her
descendants have increased discipline and physical ability.
·
Camila - Student and activist (implied to be from Afghanistan or Pakistan). Earlier in her life
Camila survived an assassination attempt that necessitated extensive
reconstructive surgery, and she was granted asylum in the Netherlands. Camila
was chosen as an arklet as a rebuke to conservative Muslim countries that
refused to nominate women in the Casting of Lots. While initially a close
friend of former President Flaherty, Camila grows disillusioned with her during
the events of the novel, ultimately preventing Flaherty from murdering Tekla.
Camila has Moira imbue her descendants with non-aggressive traits, in order to
be better suited to living in the close confines of space for generations.
·
Aïda Ferrari - An Italian "Arkie",
Aïda first appears after having led a revolt against Julia's control of the
arklets that rebelled against the ISS. Deciding that future humans will look
down upon her descendants due to the cannibalism she participated in while cut off from
the ISS, she gives each of her children markedly different qualities, to best
counter the attributes selected by the other Eves.
Others
·
Luisa Soter - A sociologist and
the eighth surviving female of Endurance's journey to Cleft, Luisa is
post-menopausaland thus incapable of becoming an "Eve". Luisa was
born in New York City and
educated at the Ethical Culture School, instilling in her a philosophy some of
the Eves' descendants would carry. Luisa had previously worked with refugees
and economic migrants, making her the first psychologist and social worker of
the ISS population.
·
"Doc"
Dubois Jerome Xavier Harris - Astronomer and
television personality. Informs President Julia of the forthcoming Hard Rain,
eventually sent up to the ISS as a leader and scientific advisor. On his urging
pushes for the resettlement of the cloud ark on a canyon on "cleft",
a remnant of the moon's iron core which would protect them from radiation and
meteorite strikes. Dies from an ingested radioactive particle shortly after
arrival on cleft, content in the guaranteed safety to humanity provided by
their new home.
·
Tavistock Prowse - Blogger/Journalist and primary source of information for the
arkies in the Cloud Ark. Sides with Julia and disseminates her propaganda
advocating for secession from ISS. Initiates cannibalism among the arkies by
eating his own leg due to their relative uselessness in space. Accidentally
creates a religion amongst the secessionist arkies, with the swarm being viewed
as a supernatural being. Is later eaten by Aïda and her followers shortly
before their battle for Endurance to give them energy. The future human races
view his siding with Julia and willingness to write her propaganda as caused by
his reliance on distractive social media, and thus scorn advanced micro
computing technologies intended for personal use.
·
Sean Probst - Mining magnate and commander of comet-mining spacecraft Ymir. Launches an expedition to
retrieve a comet after a political battle over aerospace resources.
Successfully brings an ice comet into near earth orbit but succumbs with the
rest of his crew to radiation sickness from the fallout of the nuclear reactor
they used.
·
Cal Blankenship - U.S. Navy Commander of a nuclear ballistic missile submarine.
Nukes the Venezuelan navy and an army of protesters to protect rocket launches
to the ISS after being ordered to do so by the president. He and Ivy amicably
end their engagement during the Hard Rain, before he submerges to avoid the
devastation. Revealed in the epilogue to have been part of an underwater ark
project as extensive as the cloud ark, with his descendants recognizing the
last photograph he had sent to Ivy upon Blue's first contact with the Pingers.
·
Rufus MacQuarie - Dinah's father and operator of a mine in the Brooks Range in northern Alaska. Establishes a
bunker with his friends, family, and associates to survive the Hard Rain, with
his descendants becoming the Diggers. Of all the races, the Diggers remain
closest to "root stock" humanity having simply enacted population
control instead of using genetic engineering as the Spacers or selective
breeding as the Pingers.
·
Pete Starling - President Julia Bliss Flaherty's Science advisor. Oversees the
development of the cloud ark, and attempts to seize the resources Sean Probst
is acquiring for his asteroid mission. It is strongly hinted that he viewed the
Cloud Ark as a panacea for maintaining social order in the face of extinction,
and is unconcerned in the actual success of the project. Later killed by a
micrometeorite within a space capsule after being launched into orbit in an
X-37 at the last minute with the President. His gun is eventually displayed as
a relic in a museum by the future human races, allowing visitors to see how
different their armaments were from old earth.
·
Ulrika Ek - Swedish project manager of cloud ark construction. Launched to
the cloud ark concurrently with Markus. Refused to provide separate religious
worship pods, earning the ire of every religious group, and limited it to an
interfaith pod. Dies from a stroke during the journey to cleft.
·
Markus Leuker - A former Swiss Air Force pilot
and ISS veteran, Markus was appointed commander of the cloud ark following
Ivy's refusal to stop Sean Probst, and as a politically-neutral acceptable
compromise. He quickly forms a sexual relationship with Dinah, and establishes
a security force composed of wrestlers. Died when the MIV he is using to adjust
the comet's course is damaged by accident.
·
Rhys Aitken - A British engineer
specializing in unusual constructs, initially sent to the ISS to integrate a
torus for space tourists, Rhys inspires several upgrades and uses for Dinah's
robots. He and Dinah have a brief sexual relationship which she breaks off due
to his depressive moods following the conclusion of any of his projects.
Assists in the creation of Endurance after which he slips into a depressive
mood, eventually committing suicide a month into the journey.
·
Vyacheslav
Dubsky - Russian cosmonaut. Launched to the ISS alongside Rhys.
·
Part
Three
·
Kath Amalthova
Two - Moiran Surveyor for Blue. Takes the name Kath Amalthova Three
after undergoing post traumatic epigenetic shift.
·
Beled Tomov - Teklan Surveyor for Blue with an extensive military
background. Teklans are the most physically capable of the seven races of
humanity.
·
"Doc"
Hu Noah - Elderly Ivyn geneticist leading the expedition to the surface.
Most prominent head of the new earth teraforming project. Ivyns are most
intelligent.
·
Ariane
Casablancova - Julian
Quarantine agent. Julians are the most suspicious of the races, dominating
intelligence and statecraft work. Secretly a mole for Red, successfully ensures
the creation of a Red & Digger treaty.
·
Remembrance aka
"Memmie" - Camite; and
Hu's aide/nurse. Camites tend to be non-confrontational and compassionate. Is
killed on first contact with the Diggers.
·
Tyuratam
"Ty" Lake - Dinan
bartender/manager, Indigen (aka Sooner), and military veteran. Dinans are
natural leaders. Is employed by a secretive society serving the
"Purpose", and recruited by Doc for his seven.
·
Langobard - Aïdan Neoander and Indigen. Neoanders are one of the seven
subraces of Aïdans, most of which were initially designed to counter the
strengths of the other races. As physically capable and intelligent as any
Teklan despite not needing to exercise.
·
Einstein - Ivyn Indigen. Indigens are those who colonized the surface as
soon as it was habitable, going against treaties in place at the time.
Discovered a buried truck from old earth, his efforts to show it to the seven
lead to first contact with the Diggers who highly value the truck's metal.
·
Sonar Taxlaw - Digger encyclopedist. Diggers are the descendants of those who
survived the Hard Rain in underground shelters. Specialist on the "S"
section of the encyclopedia, joins the seven after first contact, fleeing with
them from her repressive society and explaining how to contact the Pingers.
·
Deep - Pinger envoy. Pingers are the descendants of those who
survived the Hard Rain in underwater caverns aboard submarines. Initially
selectively breeding for confined spaces, they started selectively breeding to
survive underwater after the "spacers" had restored water through the
crashing of comets.
Development
Stephenson
first began planning his novel around 2006, while he was working at Blue
Origin. He observed: "Some researchers had begun to express concern over
the possibility that a collision between two pieces of debris might spawn a
large number of fragments, thereby increasing the probability of further
collisions and further fragments, producing a chain reaction that might put so
much debris into low earth orbit as to create a barrier to future space
exploration. Having been raised on the idea of 'Space, the Final Frontier', I
was both appalled and fascinated by the possibility that it might instead
become an impenetrable ceiling only a hundred or so miles above our
heads."
He would
continue to develop Seveneves over the next eight years, as
Stephenson tried to "stick to legit science as much as I can".
Reception
As of June
2015, critical reception for Seveneves has been mostly positive. A review in the Chicago Tribune commented on the book's length, stating "when
Stephenson finds a theme commensurate with his ambition, all those pages can
speed by like a bullet train. Seveneves offers at once his most conventional
science-fiction scenario and a superb exploration of his abiding fascination
with systems, philosophies and the limits of technology." Booklist also praised the work, writing "Well-paced over three
parts covering 5,000 years of humanity’s future, Stephenson’s monster of a book
is likely to dominate your 2015 sf-reading experience."
Molecular
biologist Jennifer Doudna praised the book as a "fantastic adventure
across time and space, grounded in science but deeply thought-provoking about
human nature and the future of our species." Developmental biologist PZ Myers,
however, considered that it had "appalling" genetics, noted that
"Stephenson (...) doesn’t understand biology", and concluded that the
book lacks "novelistic conventionalities like story-telling and character
development".
Bill Gates recommended Seveneves as one of five books to read in the
summer of 2016, praising in particular its scientific accuracy. He writes,
"Seveneves reminded
me of all the things I love about science fiction."
The
Guardian's Steven Poole was more critical in
his review, criticizing the work as being overly descriptive, and observing:
"Once we arrive in the novel's snail-paced last third, there are lots and
lots of lavish descriptions of imaginary machines: city-sized orbiting
habitats, giant pendulums reaching down into the Earth’s atmosphere, 'sky
trains'. After scores of pages of this, my eyelids were succumbing to a
powerful gravitational force."[13]
The book
was shortlisted for the 2016 Hugo Award for Best Novel.
Film adaptation
Skydance Media has hired screenwriter
William Broyles Jr., director Ron Howard, and producer Brian Grazer to adapt the feature film.
Selected
and edited from Wikipedia
** **
1708
hours. Wow. This is a lot of stuff. I haven't even read or begun to edit for
the blog. This is too much.
Yet a movie is being made. - Amorella
1709 hours. No movies, that's what you said once. No pictures either
about any of the books. Why even mention this? I'm not interested. I'm too old
to be concerned about real publication or film rights. Frankly, I don't care.
The point orndorff is that even though Neal
Stephenson's book is long and complicated it is still successful as a written
work. Let Soki absorb how the book is put together. Read it to learn something
from it not to copy it or to force yourself back into reading some science
fiction. Capiche. - Amorella
1718 hours. This is going to take some time to read.
You'll no doubt fly through the book itself.
Post when you get the Wikipedia article cleaned up for the blog. Getting time
for pizza. Later, dude. - Amorella
2125 hours. I finished editing the article. I'll need to reread it normally now.
You had supper, watched NBC News
and the last two episodes of "Major Crimes" until next Fall. - Post.
- Amorella
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